The T+T team picks their favourite watch complications
Zach BlassTo outright declare what is the single, best watch complication is, well, complicated. So just as we enlisted the team to nominate their favourite go anywhere, do anything “GADA” watch, we decided to assemble the T+T Avengers this week to each shout out their favourite complication. Whether due to the utility or artistry of the functionality, continue below to find the team’s picks.
Zach’s pick: Minute Repeater
While it may have served a practical purpose in a pre-luminous material era of watchmaking, the minute repeater is arguably the most useless complication in watchmaking today. That being said, its obsolescence, and yet the lengths watch manufacturers will go to realise the complex mechanical marvel, results in a very romantic and alluring charm. A window into the past. The musicality of the complication is also very interesting, with manufacturers creating repeaters with different chime patterns and pitches – as well as experimenting with case materials to refine the acoustics of the chimes.
Perhaps my German heritage is the thing to blame here, glockenspiel clocks always amusing me as a young child. And, as you visit various cities around the world, hearing the incredible musical chimes from churches, for example, is always a beautiful moment in a crowded urban street. For me, the minute repeater complication embodies what many of us love about mechanical watchmaking. Sure, there are plenty of more capable devices to tell us the time. But the artistry of watchmaking, the preservation of a traditional craft, and the praise these artisans deserve for designing, decorating, and assembling such micro-mechanics is ultimately what we watch geeks live for. Unfortunately, yet understandably considering the complexity of it, the complication is rather cost-prohibitive for buyers. But, there are ways to find chiming watches at more approachable prices – whether finding a 100+ year old minute repeater pocket watch like I did, or more modern products like the Christopher Ward C1 Bel Canto Limited Edition that offers an hour striking watch under $4,000 USD.
Ricardo’s pick: GMT
If you’ve read my articles, it should be no surprise to you that the GMT complication is my favourite. Having the ability on your wrist to instantly see both your home and a secondary time zone creates this palpable connection to others. Whether it’s to my family when I’m in Switzerland or to the T+T crew in Melbourne when I’m home in NYC.
I also appreciate the different flavours a GMT can come in (true or office) as well as the fun banter that can lead to. Add to that its ties to one of my other loves, aviation, and I can’t picture my collection without one. Or maybe even two.
D.C.’s pick: Slide Rule Chronograph
Most of my compadres’ choices will probably lean toward either the practical, or a complication that shows off the watchmaker’s art, but my pick is a purely sentimental one: The slide rule chronograph. This archaic choice is technically two complications, I reckon, but no matter. You can trace a direct line from today to my childhood, and memories of flying with my father.
He was a private pilot of small aircraft, and wore a beat-up Breitling Navitimer 806 to perform his in-flight calculations (until the advent of the computerised cockpit). I recall vividly that it was this watch that formed my horological origin story. I was fascinated as he used this inscrutable, complex-looking mechanical device to figure such critical information as airspeed, distance, rate of descent, and fuel consumption, calculations that are no longer necessary in today’s highly automated world of flight.
Breitling was the first to market a circular slide rule bezel specifically to pilots with their original Navitimer from 1952, and the Navi became the brand’s calling card. Breitling makes a wide range of watches these days, but none so iconic. Many other brands followed in their wake with pilot’s models of their own, including Seiko, Heuer, and others, but the majority of them are substantially larger (the Heuer Calculator Chronograph measures a whopping 46mm), and few as beautifully designed as the 41mm Reference 806. Even though the slide rule chrono is by all measures an obsolete device (I certainly can’t use it as intended), you can still buy watches with the near-useless feature today.
From entry level models like Casio’s Edifice EF-527D-1AVEF and Citizen’s Promaster Nighthawk Blue Angels, to legit Swiss chronos like the Oris Big Crown X-1 Calculator, this idea of a wristborne flight instrument is more romantic than practical. Even the Willy Wonka of high-end watchmaking insanity, Richard Mille, makes a version, the bonkers seven-figure RM 039 Manual Winding Toubillon Chronograph Aviation, proving that nothing succeeds like excess. But even in the thin air of such a stratospheric price point, it still can’t compare to my first watch love, the Navitimer 806, and the fondly remembered place in time that it represents.
Luke’s pick: No complication
Right now, I have four email addresses, two small children and an ageing mother who isn’t very well. None of which, of course, is remarkable in the slightest. I’m sure that you have just as much on your plate, too. For most of us, modern life is a daily shit-storm of deadlines and domestic logistics – a precarious juggling act with one more ball that you can comfortably handle. Not that there’s also a lot of fun to be had within that pressurised inferno. But you get the idea – life is complicated enough.
And I don’t want any more of that from my watch. I want something clean and serene, a wrist-bound oasis from the madness. I can appreciate the technical ingenuity of a whirring tourbillon or perpetual calendar, but I’m happy to admire them from a distance. All I’m really after from a watch is that soothing tick and the reassuring weight attached to the end of my wrist. Without it I just feel slightly unbalanced and I’m trying to stay on my feet.